Eating a Lab-Grown Hamburger

Just last week I wrote a post on in vitro meat, or lab-grown meat, discussing the potential benefits of switching from livestock to in vitro meat, and the challenges involved.  Right in the middle of writing the post, news came out that a $330,000 in vitro meat hamburger that had been in development for two years, was going to be cooked and served to a select few reviewers in London the very next week.  Apparently my timing could not have been better.

Lab-grown meat gorwing in petri dishes

The Taste and Texture of Lab-grown Beef

The number one question on my mind was how would it taste.   Mark Post, the researcher behind this particular foray into in vitro meat, described the texture of a sample from a couple years ago as like a scallop, firm, but squishy and moist.  My hope was for an improvement over this... unappetizing description.

It appears I got my wish.  One reviewer, author of The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future of Food Josh Schonwald, described the texture, saying “the bite feels like a conventional hamburger” however the taste was “like an animal-protein cake.”  This is more than likely because this burger, unlike the samples tasted a few years ago, is 100% protein.  There is no fat in it at all, which makes this a very lean burger.  Marbling, which occurs naturally in animals, hopefully will be worked on soon.

Regardless of the texture and taste, it is amazing that science has advanced enough to make meat in the lab, and made something that wasn't completely disgusting.  The meat for the burger was grown from stem cells from a cow, so don't think of this as some horrible abomination.  The scientists simply took the cow cells and got them to divide repeatedly in the lab, creating small bits of meat.  The meat is, for all intents and purposes, beef.  The only real difference is an animal was not slaughtered to make it.  Look at this as a humane alternative to eating meat.  I don't know about you, but I will absolutely be trying one the first chance I get.